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Trump pressures Georgia high election official to ‘discover’ votes and overturn Biden victory

Trump pressures Georgia top election official to 'find' votes and overturn Biden victory

In an exceptional phone call this weekend, President Donald Trump pressured Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the state by finding votes to shift the number in his favor, as received by NBC News.

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger resisted pressure from Trump to change Georgia’s election results, even as the president made veiled threats of possible prosecution if denied. The call was made on Saturday.

Trump, who refused to allow the election, said during the call that he wanted to “find 11,780 votes” to change the outcome in Georgia.

He told Raffensperger, a Republican, that Georgia’s vote had dropped hundreds of thousands of votes and suggested that the Secretary of State announce that he had recalculated the numbers to show a Trump victory.

“Well, Mr. President, the challenge you have is the data you have is wrong,” Raffensberger replied, according to the record.

Raffensperger and the secretary’s general counsel, Attorney Ryan Germany, also pushed back on Trump’s claims that ballot papers had been destroyed or that Dominion had removed parts of voting machines in Georgia that were showing more Republican votes.

The contents of the phone call were first reported by the Washington Post.

Trump, referring to Saturday’s call in a tweet on Sunday morning, said Raffensperger could not answer his questions about alleged election fraud, saying, “He has no idea.” Raffensperger replied on Twitter, writing, “What you say is not true. The truth will come out.”

Bob Bauer, a senior adviser to President-elect Biden, slammed Trump’s actions in a statement on Sunday.

“We now have irrefutable evidence that a president is putting an official of his own party under pressure and threatening to induce him to overturn the legal, certified number of votes of one state and fabricate another in his place,” said Bauer. “It captures the whole, nefarious story of Donald Trump’s attack on American democracy.”

The Senate Minority Whip, Dick Durbin, D-IL, said in a statement that the call warranted a criminal investigation.

“President Trump’s taped conversation with Georgian Foreign Minister Raffensperger is more than a pathetic, rambling, delusional abuse. His shameful effort to intimidate an elected official into deliberately changing and misrepresenting the statutory votes in his state strikes in the heart of our democracy and deserves nothing less than a criminal investigation, “the statement said.

House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., Condemned Trump’s actions as a “despicable abuse of power” that may be incontestable.

“If it is potentially criminal, it may be incontestable. And even if there is no crime, it may be punishable,” Schiff told reporters on Sunday.

Justin Levitt, an expert on suffrage and a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who was a former Justice Department official, believes Trump’s behavior in calling would be in violation of several laws if a prosecutor could prove the president did so white weren’t really thousands of countless ballots that would turn the election around.

These criminal violations could include a conspiracy to violate a federal electoral law that has been used in the past to prosecute electoral fraud and a violation of Georgian state law relating to incitement to electoral fraud, he said.

“It’s pretty appalling that the only question is whether the president is sufficiently detached from reality to believe he hasn’t committed a crime,” Levitt said.

The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment. During the call, President Raffensperger threatened possible legal ramifications if his demands were not met.

“You know what you did and you don’t report it,” Trump said during the call. “This is a criminal, this is a crime. And you cannot allow it. This is a great risk for you and for Ryan, your lawyer. This is a great risk.”

The call comes just days before two major Georgia Senate runoff elections, in which Democratic candidates’ victories in both races would turn control of the chamber, and less than a month before Biden’s inauguration. Trump is holding a rally for the Republican candidates on Monday.

Georgia is one of several states where the Trump campaign or the president’s supporters have fought unsuccessfully to change or invalidate the vote since Trump’s loss to Biden in the November election.

None of the lawsuits, recounts, or investigations in any state have identified the type of widespread electoral fraud or miscounts that would be required to reverse the election in Trump’s favor.

The number of votes in Georgia and other states since the November elections has already been confirmed, and the electoral college has confirmed Joe Biden’s victory.

Biden’s victory in Georgia was a big change in the Republican-controlled state as he was the first Democratic presidential candidate since Bill Clinton in 1992. After the first count showed Biden as the winner of the state, Georgia carried out a recount that showed the same result. Raffensperger confirmed the result on November 20th.

The tight profit margin and the presence of Republicans in key positions have made it a target in the Trump team’s efforts to change the election results. Trump has also pressured Governor Brian Kemp to help reverse the outcome, but Kemp said it was not legal for him to call a special legislative session to appoint a new list of presidential voters.

Biden’s victory is due to be confirmed by a joint congressional session on Wednesday, but a group of 11 Republican senators and elected senators, including Texas Senator Ted Cruz, want to delay the move, as do some members of the Republican House. Vice President Mike Pence “welcomed” the move to delay certification, according to his chief of staff, but others like Utah Senator Mitt Romney have been harshly critical of the plan.

Trump is expected to participate in anti-certification protests in Washington on Wednesday.

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Politics

Trump, in Taped Name, Pressured Georgia Official to ‘Discover’ Votes to Overturn Election

Trump, in Taped Call, Pressured Georgia Official to ‘Find’ Votes to Overturn Election

At another point, when Mr. Trump claimed that a video of the vote count at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta revealed that an employee was guilty of blatant ballot filling, Mr. Raffensperger replied that the video was selectively edited by Mr. Trump’s attorney. Rudolph W. Giuliani and other lawyers.

“They cut and rolled the video and took it out of context,” said Raffensperger. “The events that took place are nowhere near what was projected.”

When Mr Germany told the President that some of the allegations had been examined by both the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the FBI and found to be untrue, Mr Trump replied that the agents were false.

“Then they are incompetent,” he said. “There are only two answers – dishonesty or incompetence.”

Mr Raffensperger said Mr Trump’s allegation that ballot papers were scanned three times was false. “We conducted an audit and conclusively proved that they were not scanned three times,” he told the president.

The president seemed incapable of envisioning a reality in which he would lose Georgia and repeatedly rewound statistics that he said he won the state by “hundreds of thousands of votes”.

“You look at it by rally size, frankly,” said Mr Trump, adding that he wanted to go over some of the numbers. He claimed that 250,000 to 300,000 ballots were “mysteriously thrown into the reels,” a problem he said in Fulton County.

“We think if you check the signatures, a real signature check in Fulton County, you’ll find at least a few hundred thousand forged signatures,” the president said, citing one conspiracy theory after another.

“People have said it was the highest vote ever,” he told Mr. Raffensperger, claiming that the fraud cases were “many, many times” more than Mr. Biden’s profit margin. “The political people said there was no way they could beat me.”

Michael D. Shear reported from Washington and Stephanie Saul from New York.

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Health

A European Official Reveals a Secret: The U.S. Is Paying Extra for Coronavirus Vaccines

A European Official Reveals a Secret: The U.S. Is Paying More for Coronavirus Vaccines

This is significantly lower than the company’s official price, which was announced at $ 19.50 per dose, which the US government has also paid. The Pfizer vaccine launch began this week in the United States.

The Moderna vaccine, which is the next to be approved for the EU on January 6 and is expected to receive emergency approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday, costs the EU $ 18 per dose, as the table shows. The company said it would charge $ 25 to $ 37 per dose. The US government was directly involved in funding the development of the Moderna vaccine and has signed a contract to pay around $ 15 per dose.

Covid19 vaccinations>

Answers to your vaccine questions

With a coronavirus vaccine spreading out of the US, here are answers to some questions you may be wondering about:

    • If I live in the US, when can I get the vaccine? While the exact order of vaccine recipients may vary from state to state, most doctors and residents of long-term care facilities will come first. If you want to understand how this decision is made, this article will help.
    • When can I get back to normal life after the vaccination? Life will only get back to normal once society as a whole receives adequate protection against the coronavirus. Once countries have approved a vaccine, they can only vaccinate a few percent of their citizens in the first few months. The unvaccinated majority remain susceptible to infection. A growing number of coronavirus vaccines show robust protection against disease. However, it is also possible that people spread the virus without knowing they are infected because they have mild symptoms or no symptoms at all. Scientists don’t yet know whether the vaccines will also block the transmission of the coronavirus. Even vaccinated people have to wear masks for the time being, avoid the crowds indoors and so on. Once enough people are vaccinated, it becomes very difficult for the coronavirus to find people at risk to become infected. Depending on how quickly we as a society achieve this goal, life could approach a normal state in autumn 2021.
    • Do I still have to wear a mask after the vaccination? Yeah, but not forever. Here’s why. The coronavirus vaccines are injected deep into the muscles and stimulate the immune system to produce antibodies. This seems to be sufficient protection to protect the vaccinated person from disease. What is not clear, however, is whether it is possible for the virus to bloom in the nose – and sneeze or exhale to infect others – even if antibodies have been mobilized elsewhere in the body to prevent that vaccinated person gets sick. The vaccine clinical trials were designed to determine if people who were vaccinated are protected from disease – not to find out if they can still spread the coronavirus. Based on studies of flu vaccines and even patients infected with Covid-19, researchers have reason to hope that people who are vaccinated will not spread the virus, but more research is needed. In the meantime, everyone – including those who have been vaccinated – must imagine themselves as possible silent shakers and continue to wear a mask. Read more here.
    • Will it hurt What are the side effects? The vaccine against Pfizer and BioNTech, like other typical vaccines, is delivered as a shot in the arm. The injection in your arm feels no different than any other vaccine, but the rate of short-lived side effects seems to be higher than with the flu shot. Tens of thousands of people have already received the vaccines, and none of them have reported serious health problems. The side effects, which can be similar to symptoms of Covid-19, last about a day and are more likely to occur after the second dose. Early reports from vaccine trials suggest that some people may need to take a day off because they feel lousy after receiving the second dose. In the Pfizer study, around half developed fatigue. Other side effects occurred in at least 25 to 33 percent of patients, sometimes more, including headache, chills, and muscle pain. While these experiences are not pleasant, they are a good sign that your own immune system is having a strong response to the vaccine that provides lasting immunity.
    • Will mRNA vaccines change my genes? No. Moderna and Pfizer vaccines use a genetic molecule to boost the immune system. This molecule, known as mRNA, is eventually destroyed by the body. The mRNA is packaged in an oily bubble that can fuse with a cell, allowing the molecule to slide inside. The cell uses the mRNA to make proteins from the coronavirus that can stimulate the immune system. At any given moment, each of our cells can contain hundreds of thousands of mRNA molecules that they produce to make their own proteins. As soon as these proteins are made, our cells use special enzymes to break down the mRNA. The mRNA molecules that our cells make can only survive a few minutes. The mRNA in vaccines is engineered to withstand the cell’s enzymes a little longer, so the cells can make extra viral proteins and trigger a stronger immune response. However, the mRNA can hold for a few days at most before it is destroyed.

Eric Mamer, a spokesman for the European Commission, declined to comment on the price list as the negotiated agreements were “kept confidential” but did not contest the pricing.

A spokeswoman for Ms De Bleeker said she tweeted the details to settle a political debate in Belgium in which opposition officials accuse the government of not providing enough money to buy the vaccines.

“We tried to be transparent, but it seems we were a little too transparent,” said Bavo De Mol, the spokesman.

Several health economists have found that the price of the vaccine itself – even if the US is paying more than Europe – is trivial compared to the economic cost of an ongoing pandemic. Just this week, Congress is preparing to approve payments of $ 600 to each American adult to cushion the blow of the pandemic-sparked recession, far more than the $ 39 per person required are to vaccinate adults at the higher Pfizer price.

“The cost of overpayment is so small compared to potential counterfactual factors,” said Benedic Ippolito, an American Enterprise Institute-based researcher who studies drug prices. “It’s like a shrug when our price is a little higher. This is a one-time pandemic and we will deal with the drug price situation later. “

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Health

Former Obama HHS official criticizes Trump administration’s international Covid strategy

Former Obama HHS official criticizes Trump administration’s global Covid approach

Former Health and Social Services Officer Dr. Mario Ramirez told CNBC that he was “concerned” about equitable access to Covid-19 resources around the world and criticized the Trump administration for not participating in the multilateral COVAX facility.

“One of the things that was regrettable about the Trump administration’s approach to the pandemic was that they chose not to attend the COVAX facility,” said Ramirez, a former coordinator for the HHS Pandemic and Emerging Threats Office of Global Affairs. “The COVAX facility was an opportunity for emerging economies to jointly invest in vaccines and gain access to all of these resources.”

According to a report by NBC News, poorer countries around the world may have to wait years to get vaccines while vaccines are currently being rolled out in rich countries like the US and the UK.

In a comprehensive interview on Wednesday evening during The News with Shepard Smith, Ramirez also discussed his experience with Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine. One of tens of thousands of Americans who have now received it, he said he felt “great” after having “a little pain in his arm”.

All 50 states have now started giving Pfizer’s vaccinations. An FDA advisory committee will meet Thursday to discuss whether or not to give Moderna’s vaccine the go-ahead just two days after announcing the shot is highly potent. If the panel approves the Moderna vaccine, nearly 6 million doses will be deployed across the country next week. The federal government has already signed deals with Pfizer and Moderna to deliver a total of 200 million vaccine doses by the first quarter of the new year.

Ramirez told Shepard Smith that there are several systems in place to ensure people get their critical second dose of the Covid vaccine. He was given a physical paper dosage card and said it was part of the process to remind people to get their second dose. The ambulance added that he also receives regular feedback from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through his V-Safe app. Ramirez said another critical aspect of helping people remember they received the second dose was to sign up for the first dose.

“For example, we know from previous studies with the HPV vaccine that complying with this second visit is a big contributor to compliance,” Ramirez said.

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Politics

With Selfies, Emojis and Little Disruption, the Electoral School Makes It Official

With Selfies, Emojis and Little Disruption, the Electoral College Makes It Official

In the end, democracy carried the day.

Wisconsin’s 10 voters quietly walked into a quiet state capitol on Monday and saw more police officers than protesters. While waiting to officially cast their ballots, the socially distant Democratic officials and activists took selfies in an ornate wood-paneled room. When the vote finally came, one voter added hearts to the controls on the lines for the Democratic President’s ticket in a rare expression of emotion.

“We did it,” said Governor Tony Evers, relieved after he announced the final settlement – a unanimous vote for Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Kamala Harris.

When the electoral college cast their ballots for Mr. Biden on Monday, the moment felt both extraordinary and repetitive. After all, the elected president and his team have won the election since November and have repeatedly emerged victorious in legal proceedings, hearings and recounts.

But President Trump and his allies’ extraordinary attack on the elections and their efforts to deprive millions of voters of the voting rights exposed the creaky governance of American democracy.

And on Monday the bureaucracy withdrew.

From Hillary Clinton giving a thumbs up after casting her vote as New York Electress to the shadow gatherings Republicans held in battlefield states, it was a day marked by more symbolism and emotion than surprise for some was.

Robin Smith, a Democratic activist and librarian in Lansing, Michigan, was suffocated while casting her vote for the president-elect. She wore a Biden / Harris face mask and donkey needle with red, white and blue jewels for the Democratic Party.

‘Stay there, Mom. Be in the moment,’ ‘Ms. Smith said, her daughter pressing for text. “As a black woman, it really means everything to me.”

Prior to the official votes in Maryland, Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican who early criticized Mr Trump’s efforts to cast doubt on the election results, described the event as a “civic lesson” – perhaps a nameless confrontation with the president.

“The peaceful change of power in which we are officially participating here today is a hallmark of our democracy, which has been passed on for more than 220 years,” said Hogan. “It is a reminder that despite our differences, we are united as Americans who honor the will of the people.”

As Mr Hogan noted, there was a history of American democracy – as well as its many quirks.

In Kentucky, voters promised they would not be engaged in a deadly weapon duel, part of the state’s oath added in the early 19th century because too many residents killed each other.

In Alabama, voters heard a lecture on the story of their role from an actor dressed as Uncle Sam before casting their nine votes for Mr. Trump.

And in New Hampshire, Mary Carey Foley, a retired high school teacher who first met Mr. Biden nearly four decades ago, described her political ancestry as a third-generation elector and described the voices of her mother in 1972 and grandmother in the year 1946.

Perhaps the most unusual thing was that anyone was talking about voters at all. As the country recorded 300,000 deaths from the coronavirus and eagerly watched the introduction of a vaccine, Americans were bombarded by obscure officials who cast ballots and signed them multiple times – procedures that were shown on cable news throughout the day.

Voters sought transparency through flawed internet streams, both to refute the conspiracy theories that have resonated with Trump’s supporters and to implicitly admit that some conservatives are unlikely to accept the election result. Those theories blossomed in the live chat streams that accompanied the meetings, a unique mix of champagne emojis and conspiracy theories for 2020.

In Nevada, six voters who met during a live publicly broadcast video chat held signed ballots on their screens, which were counted by Mark Wlashin, assistant secretary of state for elections. The chatter offered a glimpse into a divided nation.

“We all know Trump is having a breakdown!” wrote one user walking from Clorox Bleach followed by four laughing emoji faces.

Hillbilly shot back: “I’m a Trump supporter and not angry because Biden will never be president.”

Last week, the Supreme Court turned down the desperate efforts of Trump allies to change the election result and smashed a long-term strategy that depended on banning four states won by Mr Biden from casting their votes and convincing Republican-controlled legislators with alternative legislators Choose slate friendly voters.

Mr Trump now has few resources to change the election result, although that did little to deter some supporters from continuing to advance fantastic plans.

Much of the recent effort has centered on what some Trump allies have called the “alternate voter roll” – die-hard supporters who gathered in state capitals to vote for Mr. Trump. The self-appointed voters are not certified by state executives and, according to legal experts, have no legal position.

That didn’t stop them from playing a little live-action role-playing game of the typical everyday inner workings of democracy.

Outside the Michigan State Capitol on Monday 10 of the so-called Republican voters vowed to cast their ballots for Mr. Trump before being denied entry by state police.

Bernadette Comfort, president of the Trump campaign in Pennsylvania, described the shadow event in her state as a “procedural vote” carried out at the request of the campaign.

“This was in no way an effort to usurp or dispute the will of Pennsylvania voters,” she said.

Josh Shapiro, the Democratic attorney general and one of his 20 voters, was far less sympathetic: “A ridiculous charade,” he told CNN shortly after Mr Biden was elected.

Across the country, some of Mr. Trump’s allies seemed far more willing to accept the reality of the elections. After California officially confirmed Mr Biden’s victory, several Republican senators finally recognized the Democrat as president-elect on Monday night, a reversal of weeks of public opposition among GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Top Republican leaders in the Michigan legislature recognized the loss of Mr Trump on Monday and reiterated their refusal to give in to the president’s demands for interference in the electoral process.

“I fought hard for President Trump – nobody wanted him to win more than me,” said spokesman Lee Chatfield. “But I also love our republic. I can’t believe risking our norms, traditions and institutions to pass a resolution that will retroactively change voters for Trump. “

He added, “I’m afraid we will lose our country forever.”

After weeks of harassment and death threats against election officials, only a handful of Trump supporters gathered outside the state capital’s buildings on Monday – a sign of waning hope, even among the more ardent supporters of the president, that he could prevail.

In Madison, a small group marched slowly around the Capitol on a cold afternoon, wearing rosaries, statutes of the Blessed Virgin, and many complaints about the elections.

“We don’t protest, we pray,” said Geralyn Kettermann, 65, of Fulton Township, Wisconsin, who saw a sign that read “Jail Wisconsin Election Commission! All Trump votes stolen!”

The Democrats also saw an opportunity to fuel their political struggles. Nikema Williams, the leader of the Democratic Party in Georgia, opened the proceedings with a small victory round. As she spoke, long voting lines grew across the state, with the beginning of personal voting in two crucial runoff elections that will determine control of the Senate.

“Georgian voters are very powerful and we will soon prove it again,” said Ms. Williams. “Georgians have known for years, and now the nation knows Georgia is a blue state.”

Mrs. Williams looked forward to the next month. And others also looked ahead – with a less certain view that this chapter is really coming to an end.

Since November 7, when Mr Biden won the presidency and the Trump campaign hastened its attacks on the process, Americans had viewed the vote in the electoral college as the finish line.

Now that the country was crossing it, not everyone was so confident.

“Towards the end of this event, it is evident that this is neither the end of the discussion about the 2020 election nor the way we conduct future elections,” said Katie Hobbs, Arizona Democratic Secretary of State. “This is probably the start of a long debate.”

The coverage was contributed by Kathleen Gray of Lansing, Michigan. Kay Nolan of Madison, Wisconsin; Reid J. Epstein from Washington; and Isabella Grullón Paz from New York.

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Trump official Mick Mulvaney’s hedge fund in search of no less than $1 million from buyers

Trump official Mick Mulvaney's hedge fund seeking at least $1 million from investors

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, December 10, 2019.

Al Drago | Reuters

Mick Mulvaney, former acting chief of staff to President Donald Trump, plans to raise at least $ 1 million from outside investors for his newly formed hedge fund.

Mulvaney, now representing the outgoing administration in Northern Ireland, and his business partner Andrew Wessel announced that they are aiming for this minimum amount in a CNBC first-examined filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The filing gives fresh insight into Mulvaney’s Exegis Capital fund’s plans to operate in the post-Trump era. The SEC form was signed on December 1, weeks after Democrat Joe Biden was appointed president-elect.

Mulvaney, a former Republican Congressman from South Carolina, was also head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau within the Trump administration.

Investments appear to be in the direction of the fund limited partnership called Exegis Financial Sector Fund, the document says. The SEC form contains the same North Carolina address for the limited partnership and Exegis Capital. Mulvaney and Wessel’s names are both on the form.

The document also shows that Exegis is fundraising under the SEC’s 506 (b) rule. According to the SEC’s website, this rule allows companies to “raise unlimited funds and sell securities to an unlimited number of accredited investors.”

Mulvaney and Wessel, who have extensive experience as former portfolio managers at Sterling Capital Management in North Carolina, first announced the creation of the fund in an interview with S&P Global in August. They said at the time they wanted to invest in stocks in the small to mid-cap financial sector.

In an interview on Friday, Wessel confirmed that the $ 1 million was just the minimum they were asking investors. The hedge fund, he said, is trying to raise money from both “high net worth” and “very high net worth” individuals who may be worth at least $ 30 million.

Wessel declined to say who invested or who signaled interest in investing.

“The fundraiser is going well,” he said. “We have little interest from a number of high net worth individuals.” Wessel added that the fund had held numerous investor meetings both in person and through Zoom.

Wessel said that so far they have aimed to invest in small and mid-cap financials, with less of an emphasis on banks and interest in lenders and fintech companies.

Mulvaney’s role in the firm includes providing guidance to the best companies to invest in based on Exegis’ expectations for tighter regulation of the financial services industry under the Biden administration.

According to Wessel, Mulvaney’s experience in Washington – as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as director of the Office of Management and Budget, and as a member of the Financial Services Committee during his tenure in Congress – gives the firm a strong insight into the in-depth regulations it could provide for its business potential investments.

“For the Biden administration we are probably aiming for more regulation, not less, and we will choose our places there,” said Wessel of her investment tactics.

Wessel said Mulvaney approved the establishment of the fund with both the White House and the State Department and “he has not been to Ireland in a while”. He referred other questions about possible ethical hurdles Mulvaney may face to the former South Carolina congressman.

A State Department official told CNBC after the release that Mulvaney is considered a government special employee (SGE) and is limited to 130 calendar days of official work per year. He is not prohibited from looking for external employment, said the spokesman.

Mulvaney did not return a request for comment prior to posting.